Escalation

Once you’ve completed the new story campaign, a whole new suite of endgame activities will beckon. That’s where Strikes get even more challenging. When you seek context for the Destiny endgame, look no further than the Creative Director for The Taken King – also known as the guy who led the construction of your Vault of Glass…

Luke Smith: In our Strike the Dreadnaught reveal earlier this week, we showed some and told some about how we wanted Strikes to move forward into Year 2.

Strike replayability is augmented by variability.

Bosses with more interested combat phases and less vitality.

Strike-specific rewards.

E.g., Armor drops that look like trophies from the Strike boss

E.g., weapons that only drop from certain Strikes

But those aren’t the only changes coming to Strikes. We’ve also looked at the programming/Strike playlists and made some changes there, too.

Nightfall

Our desired Nightfall experience is the weekly ritual where you get together with your friends for a test of thumbskill and allow players to optimize for gear.

Burn skulls motivate weapon rotation and now the Burn resist talents found on chest pieces will rotate armor.

The death penalty of being kicked to orbit often leads to players feeling forced to play too safe, rather than running through the world as a monster killing machine.

Another thing we didn’t like about the Year 1 Nightfall was how players could feel forced to play Nightfall as early as possible in the week to maximize the benefit from the Nightfall buff. So, we’ve shelved that buff until we can reform it into something closer to its original intent – a mark of prestige for having achieved something challenging. We’ve adjusted sources of XP and Reputation up to account for its absence.

Now Requires Level 40

Wiping no longer returns Fireteams to Orbit

Now uses 30 second time-out penalty for Death (same as Raid Normal)

Weekly Heroic Strikes

We’ve removed a dedicated Weekly Heroic Strike from the game this Fall. In its place we’ve added a new playlist: the Vanguard Heroic Playlist.

Each week players receive bonus Legendary Marks from the Weekly Heroic Playlist. These awards are received at the Account level rather than the character level – as was the case with Year One Weekly Heroic Rewards.

We made this change to enable players to focus on a single character more, or feel less pressure to gear three characters at once for Legendary Marks.

Requires Level 40

Removed the Weekly Heroic Strikes

Instead, accounts receive Legendary Marks for completing the first three Weekly Strikes

Removed the Weekly Cap on how many Legendary Marks can be earned.

Guarantee a Legendary Engram drop from a character’s first clear of a Weekly Heroic Strike

Weekly PVP Ritual

Nightfall was built as a ritual experience for groups of three players in PVE. In Year 1, we didn’t have a good weekly ritual experience for PVP players.

Once players have completed the PVP Intro chain on Lord Shaxx, they receive access to the Weekly PVP quests on Lord Shaxx and the PVP Quartermaster.

Daily Heroic/Daily PVP

It’s important to us that Destiny remain compatible with real life. Playing multiple characters can sometimes feel like a job or a chore, the Daily Heroic and Daily PVP often felt that way. So we increased their rewards and made them an account completion. We want players to choose which characters they want to play on and earn Legendary Marks on.

Final Programming Note

Just after E3 we announced a $20 Upgrade that would provide the option for Year One Guardians to pick up the Emotes and Class Items from the Digital Collector’s Edition. That offering will be available in your console marketplace or store at The Taken King’s launch on September 15th.

To those of you who had already purchased a Digital Collector’s Edition prior to that announcement, we promised that we’d have some additional information for you: “If you purchased the existing Digital Collector’s Edition, and you already owned Destiny and both expansion packs, we’ll have some additional information for you soon.” We haven’t forgotten about you. We know who you are, and we’ve kept a list. We’ve also identified what we’re going to give you for your awesome early purchase.

Unfortunately, it’s stuff that won’t be available immediately at launch. The use of the word “stuff” here is regrettably vague, but we think you’ll be pretty excited once you learn the details. We’ll deliver those details as soon as humanly possible.

Thanks again for being patient. There will be plenty more to say about The Taken King before Commander Zavala dispatches you to investigate a Cabal distress call. We’re only a few short weeks away from The Taken King, and those weeks will be filled with surprises. While you wait for them, remember: You have ten days to complete your Moments of Triumph.